Ruben's Nightmare
by a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8
Summary: Ruben has a nightmare with his sister.


This story was not written by me. It was written by the amazing rxbenvictoriano( .vu/), as a request made by me.

**Nightmare**

In restless foetal position he lays reminiscent of being back in the amniotic sac of his mother's womb. Cold and hollow and dead like her. Like father. Like Laura. Red silk swept across him; He's an embryo again. Tonic-soaked bandages cling to blistered skin, they're tight and constricting — tough love from medicinal hands. REM battles the throes of insomnia and what seems like a forested amphitheater rapping at the window, trees as old as the Victoriano foundation fall victim to nocturnal storm. Wooden fingers clicked and tapped on glass panes. "Mm-" Ruben's body curls inwards pulling the bedsheets tighter across. Could've swallowed him up; He wouldn't have minded. Eighteen years old and he welcomes death with open arms.

Brusque ticking of the Grandfather clock echoed through ghost halls, bouncing off silence and into the open doorway of his bedroom. The metronome to his nightmares. He's in a dark place — It's devoid of sound, the abyss pulling him deeper and deeper into enigma, like the lengthening shadowed corridors beyond his room only endless and more poignant. He can't see two inches in front of him. Something or someone breathes down his neck, iced with malice it fills him to the brim in foreboding. Familiar presence with unfamiliar derision. Fanged smile belittling Ruben in his dreams… He knows it's a dream. Isn't it?

Madness settled upon his vision; He can see her pallor. 'Alive' and well, her apparition summoned to haunt him once more. She comes not with benevolence but a sneer seeping venom and spite. "Laura?" He seances her every night. She arrives bearing guilt. His body begs sleep yet his mind fights to stay conscious. Tonight she's back with her basket of torments. Pale face and paler heart, Queen of ice, a mockery of Laura's truth. That smile cuts like a guillotine's blade.

"Ruben," she hisses in sibilant dialect, "You look like you've seen a ghost. Are you afraid of me?" His heart drops into the pit of his stomach. He feels so heavy, levitating in nightmare void, organs pulling as if they could detach and liquefy at any given moment, his mouth becoming a morbid visceral ravine. He's encased in the iron maiden that is her words and her scorn.

"No, no I'm not afraid. This is a dream. You're not… you."

"I'm your sister, Ruben. I died because of you. To save you. Is that all I am now? A dream?"

"Laura…"

"I hate you." Her face twisted into a jagged, jeering smile. "And I pity how weak you've become. There is nothing in this world for you anymore is there? Was I your only purpose for life? I've been dead for eight years and it's almost as if you still wet the bed and suck your thumb. A child genius, they called you… You're pathetic and small."

Small. He felt like he could vomit, the ten year old inside him weeping uncontrollably. Bones contort beneath his skin — It hurt. Ruben grimaced, bandages coming loose and unraveling the boy he once was — Am I… shrinking? Laura's scathing glare towers above him, her mean eyes unmoving. He's trapped in her web.

"Stop…"

"No. I don't have a voice anymore except in your sleep. I don't get to live, I don't get to waste my precious life crying and burying myself in those frivolities, I'm not going to stop until you're dead. You should have died instead of me. You're sick Ruben, you don't deserve the life you have."

"…" Crack. He's broken, crumbling. Fading away.

"So die already."

He says nothing; Acidic tears accumulate in his ducts. They flow freely, overspilling. He chokes. Tiny hands frantically wipe against the current — He gives up, she laughs. An ovation of hungry demons wait to feed on his adolescent flesh, their mouths agape in crescendo. Ruben's sobbing rouses their ecstasy. Laura catches him in her palm.

"Small, sad little Ruben."

Crunch.

He's in pieces. A bloody mess of flesh and bone between Laura's jaws, staining her toothy grin as red as her dress. She's laughing on mute — Ruben's bawling sounding from the caverns of her mouth instead, her tongue as his resting place.

"You're right, Laura. I should have died."


End file.
